3 Tips for Selling a Hard-to-Sell Home

3 Minute Read

Is 2014 your year to sell your home? According to the National Association of Realtors, it just may be. Although sales have slowed somewhat as mortgage rates increase, homes are spending fewer days on the market compared to this time last year.

If you’ve been waiting—and waiting—for your home to sell, maybe it’s time to dig a little deeper to find out why. There are plenty of reasons houses don’t sell. You might not have control over the housing market, but these problems are absolutely within your power to fix.

Get Real About Your Asking Price

Mispricing your home is one of the easiest real estate mistakes to make. It can be difficult to separate emotions from the facts about a home’s worth, so some owners make their asking price way too high for the market based on sentimentality. Some sellers price their homes based on the amount they need to pay off the mortgage and walk away with a good down payment on a new home. That’s not a good strategy either.

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Simply put, your home is worth what someone will pay for it. The best way to get an idea about that number is to compare recent sale prices of homes like yours in your area. A real estate agent can do that research by doing a comparative market analysis (CMA). A CMA will help you set a price that will bring in buyers.

Create a Clean Slate

Another area to consider is your home itself. If it isn’t showroom-ready by the time the for-sale sign goes up in the yard, there’s work to be done! Get out the elbow grease and get rid of the clutter. You don’t want potential buyers to be so distracted by dust bunnies or piles of old magazines that they overlook your home’s best features.

And speaking of your home’s best features, that velvet painting you love so much isn’t one of them. You want to make it easy as possible for buyers to picture your house as their home—and that can’t happen until Elvis has left the building. So put away your personal effects and make room for the buyer’s imagination.

Hire a High-Octane Agent

If your home is priced right and staged well but still isn’t getting showings or offers, your real estate agent could be the problem. The top 10–15% of real estate agents handle the majority of home sales in any given area. That means you need the best working for you.

Look at it this way. You’re hiring your real estate agent as a marketing consultant with one objective: to get your home sold. You’ll be paying your agent thousands of dollars, so make sure they are worth the money.

You want a full-time, high-quality real estate professional who sells a large number of homes in your area each year. If your agent doesn’t measure up, find one who does right away.

Get the Best Price for Your Home

Dave’s real estate Endorsed Local Providers (ELPs) have a proven track record for selling homes in your market. You can trust your ELP to provide the best advice for getting your home sold at the right price. Find your ELP today!